Salesforce launches service to let anyone get started with IoT

Salesforce has announced a new IoT platform meant to make it easier for inexperienced businesses to utilise the technology. Salesforce myIoT has an easy-to-use point-and-click interface that helps developers connect, configure and leverage IoT devices.

Salesforce revealed the new product during its annual Dreamforce conference today. The company's revising its approach to connected technologies by putting accessibility back at the centre of its focus. It's found 60 percent of IoT projects are abandoned after they reach the Proof of Concept stage, implying businesses face significant difficulties implementing their plans.

Salesforce myIoT gives developers and decision makers a robust but accessible platform for their IoT initiatives. It's based around declarative, rule-based automation that combines the data from connected devices with other input sources. You could get insights using data collated from a sensor and information in the cloud, ensuring IoT isn't siloed as a separate part of the organisation.

The platform's supposed to be available to anyone who needs it within the business. This might be IT support staff who monitor devices or people in non-technical frontline roles who act on data. According to Salesforce, myIoT could be used across departments such as sales, marketing and support. This ensures IoT products and their insights aren't limited to a few individuals within the company.

myIoT is an important initiative for Salesforce as it reorients itself around the data industry. The company repeatedly referred to Industry 4.0 and the next industrial revolution during its Dreamforce event. According to CEO Marc Benioff, Salesforce's technologies are meant to help enterprises reposition themselves around this trend.

"The Fourth Industrial Revolution is reshaping every business, industry and economy, and the customer is at the center of it all," said Benioff. "Salesforce is delivering breakthrough technologies like artificial intelligence to empower Trailblazers to deliver customer success, develop their careers and contribute to society in meaningful ways."

myIoT is one way in which Salesforce can assist companies as they digitally transform. There are already signs that a serious skills shortage is threatening transformation and limiting what companies can achieve. Automated technologies and point-and-click services can alleviate the impact of these issues, giving more company decision makers a way to access Industry 4.0 concepts.